Professionals, such as lawyers and accountants, are often confronted with the requirement to take actions within calendar date deadlines imposed by statutes and governmental agencies. For a professional to rely on his memory to meet such deadlines would be quite risky to his client's substantive rights as well as to his own professional reputation.
The problem associated with assuring compliance with legal deadlines is particularly acute for patent and trademark practitioners who customarily handle a very large number of separate cases as compared with attorneys who work on only a comparatively small number of cases. Moreover, patent and trademark practitioners confront, in each case, a bewildering array of deadlines such as deadlines for filing original U.S. applications to avoid bar dates defined by the United States Patent Laws, 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 102(b), 1 year deadlines for provoking an interference by copying claims from an issued patent under 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 135(b) and 2 year deadlines for filing broadening reissue applications under 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 251, and regulatory Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) response deadlines such as one month and two month missing parts deadlines under 37 C.F.R. 1.53(d), two month Ex parte Quayle deadlines in accordance with .sctn. 714.14 of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) shortened statutory deadlines under 37 C.F.R. 1.134, special rules regarding deadlines for responses after final rejection 37 C.F.R. 1.113, notice of appeal deadlines under 37 C.F.R. 1.191, oral hearing request deadlines under 37 C.F.R. 1.194(b), deadlines for filing petitions for extensions of time 37 C.F.R. 1.136, deadlines for payment of issue fees under 37 C.F.R. 1.311, and maintenance fee deadlines under 37 C.F.R. 1.362. Trademark cases often involve response deadlines under 37 C.F.R. 2.62 and deadlines for filing notices of opposition under 37 C.F.R. 2.102(c). A typical practitioner confronts a vast array of additional deadlines associated with interference proceedings and hearings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to say nothing of Federal Rules and U.S. Court rules involving patent and trademark litigation and appeal practice before the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit.
An attorney who handles the filing of corresponding foreign patent and trademark applications will confront yet another array of calendar date deadlines based on the statutes and laws of the country or tile international convention under which the corresponding applications are filed. Incredibly it is also a requirement of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in certain limited circumstances outlined in .sctn. 203.08 MPEP, that practitioners assume responsibility for discovering PTO and/or postal service errors by conducting periodic checks of the status of cases for which the practitioner is the attorney or agent of record. For example, an official action setting a calendar date deadline might not be received by a practitioner because the PTO forwards the action to an improper address. Nevertheless, the PTO can require an applicant in such circumstances to disclaim the terminal portion of a patent because the practitioner failed to conduct a timely status check to determine if an action has been mailed. The need for such periodic status checks places an additional burden on a practitioners' docket system to remind the practitioner when a status check should be filed.
In a busy patent and trademark practice involving hundreds of cases and literally thousands of deadlines each year, no human being, relying upon his memory, could be certain that appropriate actions are taken within all such deadlines. While the Patent and Trademark Office has recently been empowered by statute to revive cases upon unintentional abandonment under 37 U.S.C. .sctn. 1,137(b), such revival proceedings give rise to undesirable delay and very substantial penalty fees. Moreover, certain statutory deadlines are nonextendable such as deadlines for avoiding bar dates under 35 U.S.C. 102(b), deadlines for copying claims from an issued patent to provoke an interference and deadlines for filing a reissue or foreign convention application. Failure to act within these deadlines can result in irretrievable loss of substantive and/or procedural rights.
Traditionally, patent and trademark attorneys have relied upon manual docketing systems involving complicated manual ledger and or movable card systems for recording and organizing their deadline calendar dates to generate timely reminders for appropriate actions to be taken. Such manual systems require the attention of skilled docketing clerks with oversight supervision from the attorney or require the direct day-to-day attention of the attorney himself in order to assure reliable operation. PTO policy is particularly stringent with respect to attorneys who choose to perform the primary function of determining calendar date deadlines because the attorney is presumed to know the law and he is held strictly accountable for any mistake brought about by ignorance of the law or rules. This standard contrasts with PTO policy regarding mistakes made by non-attorney docket clerks whose mistakes can be deemed "unavoidable" under circumstances where the clerk is skilled and trained and has proven over time to be competent and reliable in implementing a well planned docketing system.
Despite very careful controls and attention, manual docketing systems often break down. Such breakdowns can be minimized by a system of cross-checks and vigilant adherence to well designed procedures but no system can be expected to operate flawlessly. Indeed, a leading authority on risk management for attorneys reports that the greatest cause of claims against trial attorneys involves time/docket control issues which most often are caused by the failure of a reminder system rather that an incorrect deadline determination, Stern, D. N., "Can Trial Lawyers Successfully Control Their Malpractice Risks?", Virginia Lawyer, Vol. 39, No. May 11, 1991, p. 40.
One approach for improving the reliability of a docketing system is to employ a computer to perform organizing, date calculating and reporting functions. Computers have the capability of managing massive amounts of data with a far greater degree of accuracy than any practical manual docketing system. Indeed quite sophisticated computer implemented systems for managing patent and trademark calendar deadlines are known. For example, a commercially available computer implemented docketing system is offered and supported by Computer Packages Inc. of Rockville, Md. Using DATAEASE Data Base Language, this system provides for patent prosecution docketing and reminders for U.S. maintenance fee as well as status checks. Moreover foreign filing, deferred examination, invention disclosure statements and foreign annuity payment deadlines may be computer calculated. The trademark system provides for trademark proof of use (Sections 8 & 15 and foreign) and renewal docketing. Additional features of the Computer Packages System include:
(1) the ability to modify data base and/or user defined reports
(2) automatic completion of field entries (codes and macros)
(3) prosecution history maintained in the computer
(4) import/export of data
(5) browse or any data field or combination of data fields
(6) usable or personal computers and local area networks (LAN's)
(7) multi tasking and "windows" capabilities.
While highly sophisticated, computer implemented docketing systems can never be more reliable than is the data entered into the docketing system. Admittedly, computer deadline calculation can help improve accuracy by minimizing the potential for human error in determining the proper calendar deadline. For example the 3 month deadlines for responding to PTO Official Actions can be calculated and stored by the computer based on the entry of an office action mailing date. Similarly, a maintenance fee payment deadline can be computer calculated and stored from entry of the issue date of a patent. Accuracy is improved because the user is required merely to enter a date printed or typed on an official document. In a manual system, the user must first note the mailing date of the Official Action and proceed to calculate from this date a deadline calendar date based on the legally imposed deadline period for response. Obviously, a computer system programmed to perform deadline date calculations is superior to a manual system but the computer system is still dependent upon the accuracy of the user entered data with respect to the mailing date entered, the case identification and the proper identification of the legally imposed deadline, for example, "restriction requirement--30 days", "official action--3 months" or "maintenance fee--31/2 years".
Another type of computer implemented docketing system is being offered by Computer Patent Annuities, P.O. Box 779. 1BL, Channel Islands, United Kingdom. The computer implemented system, known as Intellectual Property Management System, involves sophisticated deadline date calculation, recording, organizing and reporting functions based on operator supplied information. However, no provision has been made for subsequent entry of human operator generated verification signals indicative of subsequent, independent verification of the initial operator entered data.
Thus prior art computer implemented docketing systems have failed to provide very much in the way of mechanization which can detect improperly entered information that can lead to improper deadline calendar date reminders.